Story Plan Checklist: Not Just Another Cookie Cutter Character

[ladyseishou]

Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



So what does your character find funny?

Today we're going to discuss ways to make your characters unique, flesh them out and power them up, by considering elements that enhance and contrast the items you identified last week in your thumbnail descriptions for your characters.

As Karen Weisner writes:

Enhancements are the subtle, balanced or extreme elements that complement what the writer has already established as traits for that character. Enhancements are personality traits that make a character uniquely larger than life.

Indeed, author James Bonnet proposes that it is the extreme element that is essential for the creation of Great Characters. "Every truly great character has a dominant trait that has been taken to the quintessential." He provides several well-known examples:

Harry Potter is not just an ordinary young wizard, he is the most famous and powerful young wizard of all time. Sherlock Holmes is the most brilliant detective. Dracula is the quintessential vampire. Iago in 'Othello' is the most treacherous servant. Don Juan is the greatest lover. King Kong is the biggest ape. Jack-the-Ripper is the most infamous serial killer. Superman is the most powerful super hero...

If it is our larger-than-life characters that initially fascinate the reader, it is left to how we portray these same characters as flawed human beings that will earn the reader's empathy. Or as Ms. Wiener writes:

A contrast, which can also be subtle and quite nuanced, balanced or extreme, is an element that's in opposition to what the writer has already established as traits for that character.

Flawed (but likeable!) characters are the ones readers root for, because a character without flaws or fears is a character without conflicts. Readers know that true courage is facing what you fear most...

For my story, Alric, the protagonist, is an inexperienced, abrasive young man, full of himself and perhaps not very likable but for his dark sense of humor and that he is the strongest mage of all.

Ms. Weiner also suggest an additional method to develop your main character by "introducing another main, secondary or minor character (love interest, family member, friend or villain) who either enhances or contrasts his personality."

For me, this contrast will be shown through Jera, my second protagonist. Jera is an older man with a secret past that intersects with Alric's in a (hopefully) unexpected way. And where both have experienced tragedy in their lives, Alric is a flamboyant exhibitionist and Jera's a quiet, guarded man.

As a parting word of advice, Ms. Weiner writes: "Whatever you do, choose characteristics that'll be necessary at some point in the book, that don't hit the reader over the head and that advance each story element."

So Nano Writer, what enhancements and contrasts will you add to your character biographies? What makes your characters larger-than-life? What makes your characters human? What makes them laugh?

Comments

[brutal]

Ben has a dark sort of sense of humor masking a lot of inner conflict.

Much like David, but he's a bit more flamboyant. He's best known for making things up on the fly and being admired by his peers because his only "peers" are 4 years younger than him.

And Elliot is..a very disturbed child who thinks it's funny to throw boys off boats.